The past several months have been trying times for business across Australia amidst the impacts of COVID-19 regulations and lockdowns. With 73% of business requiring access to support measures, 20% of business seeing their revenue half essentially overnight, and unemployment at the highest level in 22 years, the difficulties currently facing Australian business owners and executives are unprecedented.
Despite this, there are several companies both international and within Australia that are thriving in the face of tightening regulations and lockdowns. One look at the share market will show you that companies such as Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay are seeing their stocks reach all-time highs in the past month.
There is a single common thread that can be found in almost all businesses that are currently flourishing in spite of COVID-19 – online selling.
Source: Common Thread Collective
eCommerce in 2020
Simply put, if you are a manufacturer or retailer that is not selling your products via an online eCommerce website, you are leaving money on the table at a time where your business needs it the most. Even before a pandemic left consumers wary of venturing to large shopping centres and retail outlets, online purchase made up 16% of all retail sales worldwide.
Since COVID-19, however, this number has spiked to 27%. This graph displays the sheer scale of this change in consumer behaviour
So how can your business capitalise on this trend and increase your revenue to levels higher than pre-lockdown? The answer is simple.
Digitise your entire sales process
It is not enough to simply create a website that displays your products. To convert online viewers to real customers, the entire sales process needs to be digitised and automated. This means a customer can browse your store, compare products, buy the products they are after, and have it shipped to their doorstep all within a few clicks.
On top of this, you wouldn’t just set up your brick and mortar store and expect the customers to come flooding in. A multi-disciplinary approach to marketing is required to achieve maximum online efficiency, bringing in paying customers at the lowest cost possible.
Source: Forbes
A multi-disciplinary approach to marketing is achieved through consistency and congruency through all marketing channels and communications, including but not limited to branding, social media, emails, public relations, and print media. All these channels and methods must be interlinked and working together to achieve the common goal of boosting online sales.
For a manufacturing or retail business, this would mean using social media to build a consistent and positive brand image, email campaigns and paid advertising to draw viewers to your eCommerce site, and discounts and deals on the site itself to drive sales.
Case study
An example of a business we helped go through this digitisation process in the wake of COVID-19 regulations is El Cielo. When restaurants, cafe and bars were forced to shut in March, 68% of El Cielo’s business stopped overnight.
Since then, we have helped El Cielo develop their new eCommerce site for both retail and wholesale customers, send out consistent messaging on their social medias, utilised paid advertising to drive eyes to their site, had their name published in several online media outlets such as Retail World through press release campaigns, and run email campaigns that have generated a 700%+ increase in sales.
Now, as Victoria’s regulations become even tighter, El Cielo are in a better position to not only survive the financial impacts of COVID-19, but come out of the pandemic stronger than ever.
El Cielo have been working around the clock to fulfil orders
Contact us today to get a free quote and discuss how we can help you reinvent your business.
P: +61 487 111 626
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